As I read the posts here, which are always informative, I keep seeing the one about "I don't know what is wrong, the machine is cutting too deep, not deep enough, seems to move over at weird times. . . ." etc, etc. As most of us know, this is RARELY caused by either VCarve (in fact, VCarve has NEVER caused this type of problem for me) or the machine controller software, MACH 3 et al.

What occurs to me is that a lot of us get caught up in the "speed" thing. We think we have to push our machines to the limit, or we are somehow not competitive. The only time that is true is if you are running your machine 24/7. In my case, my machine rarely runs a full 8 hour shift. It finally occured to me, so what if a part takes 2.3 minutes longer? I set my limits in Mach to something a lot more reasonable, and guess what? Never a problem, the machine just hums along, day after day. Since it does not goof up anymore, I now have confidence and can do other things while it is running. When it ran on the edge, I had to sit there watching it like a hawk.

This whole issue reminds me of an old saying:

SPEED KILLS

Brian - 11/12/2009 Copied to technical archive and non-technical responses - original topic can be found here -> viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2416

I agree, I slow my cuts down alittle and the cnc does as you say "hum" along with no errors. I too used to watch the machine incase of screw ups.
I now know I can walk away and be more productive doing something else while the cnc routs alittle slower than full boar.

The turtle always wins... I bought my cnc (one time payment) instead of paying an employee every week. The way I see speed on the machine is that it can do a better job than I can at any speed. I set all my feed rates at 80 and have not had one issue since with my machine... and quess what?

Yup, I use it, but I have learned. If you are not cutting deep, if you are cutting man made material, if you are very careful, it works.

BUT.

Cut solid wood, you know, the real stuff, that used to have leaves, and you might run into some trouble. You do a relief type carving and you go about 3/8 inch deep, suddenly you notice something has moved! Sure enough, the wood cupped since stresses were relieved on one side only, and pulled that good ol' tape right up.

This is one to keep an eye on. Once again, as with most things in woodworking, there is no magic ONE WAY.

I've noticed this too with solid wood. It has to be really flat (Planed properly) before loading into the machine or there wont be enough area grab between the piece and the machine bed. I've found that wherever possible I'm sticking with the good old screws on the scrap edge, and keep the tape for times when thats impossible or for large pieces. On large pieces of solid wood (Especially hardwood) the weight tends to help prevent the piece moving. DOC and feed speed contribute significantly to the chances of that piece sliding ever so slightly and ruining a multi hour carving...this I also found out the hard way!

I forgot to mention, one of the things I do, if I must use tape, is to screw a few small pieces around the edges to help stop any shifting.

The one to really watch is when you start carving pretty deep on solid wood, it may have started out flat, but it does tend to cup and pull the tape. I try to use clamps for those jobs.

I just finished a sign, 20 X 36 that needed to be relief carved to .375. All went well cause I used clamps. When I loosened them down one side, the wood bowed up at least 1/8. This is ok for this sign, fortunately.

Constant Velocity, is it a good thing? Or better yet, what the HECK is it?

The short course on CV. With CV mode off: You command a position, the machine goes there. Example, cutting into a corner, you command
(you are starting at 0,0)

G0X0Y0
G1X1Y0
G1X1Y1

The machine actually goes to the positions.

With CV mode on: The machine does not actually go to X1Y0. Control software has something called the "in position tolerance zone". What this means is that when the position gets CLOSE to the commanded position, the next command line is executed. This results in a slightly rounded corner. Usually, this is very slight. However, if your machine is running at high speeds, it can be quite visible.

So, why not just turn off CV mode all the time? Because it will also make the machine "chatter" at higher feedrates. This becomes apparent when small moves at high speeds are programmed. (it can also happen no matter how CV is set due to control loop cylce time). Turning it off can also result in what appears to be overcuts on inside corners. Since the tool actually has to come to a stop at the commanded position, tool pressure is relieved and an overcut results.

What to do? I suggest running with constant velocity mode ON and taking a look at the angular settings for CV mode in your control software.

CV can cause a lot of head scratching, but once you understand it, your machine will run like a fine Swiss watch.

Obviously, chattering can be caused by lots of things. One of the things you should check (especially if you have just started using a new machine) is how the CV mode is set. If that is fine, then you might want to try something else, like SLOWING DOWN.

Ok, so why slow down? Here is what might be happening:

All machine controls work pretty much the same. There is a program running that is in a continuous loop. In this loop, a bunch of things happen, like commanding the axis to move to a position, seeing if you pushed a button, reading a line of command information, updating the display. . .the list is actually quite huge. Doing all this takes time. The time it takes to do this is called the control loop cycle time.

Here is when chattering occurs due to the control loop cycle time: You command motion to a position and the motion takes less time than the loop cycle time.(Usually occurs with multiple short moves at high feedrates) Since the axis are not going anywhere until they are told to move again, the machine sits there, voila, chattering. Some controls use buffers to help avoid this, but those can be emptied out if the feedrate gets high enough. The obvious solution is to slow down. BUT. . . you may not have to slow down very much, just enough to stop the chatters. Try half the feedrate. If no chattering, try half the difference between the original and the new, until you are happy.

Really FAST machines, like sail cutters and lasers use parallel processing to achieve higher feedrates. One computer does nothing but watch and command the motion, the other one looks at all the other stuff. This reduces the actual cycle loop time. I am impressed with how short the Mach3 loop time is.